There was no blood in his mouth.
That's the first thing Damian noticed when he woke up. No blood. Considering that just a moment ago, he had been choking on a waterfall of blood as he said his last words to Jason and Cassandra, pleading with them not to bring him back with the Pit, to tell him that they were proud of him — well. It made sense it would be the first thing he noticed. His death had not been a kind one.
The rays of sunlight that hit his face almost blind him with their intensity. Was this the afterlife? Heaven? He couldn't imagine hell having any sort of sunlight, but maybe it's one of those 'personalized hells' that he's heard about from the many magic users of their community. It wouldn't be anything less than what he deserved; Mara's scarred visage haunted him to his very last moments, a reminder of every single one of his crimes, his regrets. His death was merely the consequences finally coming to visit him, all at once.
Oh, Grandfather. Even in death, you continue to blight us. Never before had Damian hated Ra's al Ghul more than when he saw Mara's face again after all these years, the madness and the desperation seeping from every pore. Unlike him, she didn't have anywhere else to turn to after the death of Ra's, and her hatred of Damian, festered at a young age, prevented her from siding with his mother. She only had their grandfather's false promises to cling to, the dream of a better world, a better future, all in their image — one she was unwilling to share with the family who shunned her for being the blood of a black sheep.
Damian should've have tried harder to help her. Regardless of how things were between them before, she had been his blood, his family. And long ago he had learned that the way Ra's had treated them, had forced them to treat each other, had not been the way one treated family. The moment he realized that, he should've done something to correct the bad blood between them, to make some form of reconciliation. But he hadn't, too stuck in his own problems, so easy to forget the cousin he had wronged time and time again when she wasn't throwing herself at him at every moment, trying to make herself one of those very problems.
It had cost him. It had cost them both. Because Damian was not a fool. No matter what blood they shared, his mother would never forgive Mara for killing him. No amount of reparations Mara could offer to Talia al Ghul would be enough to compensate for the death of her son, especially if Jason and Cassandra complied with his last wishes and refused to let her revive him with the Lazarus Pit. No amount except for an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Talia would not rest until her niece was dead, leaving her as the last of the House of al Ghul.
Damian wondered what she would do after that. Would she try to start again, revive their house anew with new children? Or would everything that happened with the Civil War convince her that her blood could not be trusted? That she was better off leaving herself as the last al Ghul, with no heir to follow if she was finally killed for good?
He supposed it didn't matter in the end. He was dead — the kind of dead that had no say in the matters of the living. Whatever his mother chose had no bearing on him anymore. Exhaustion clung to him like a cloak, emotional and physical alike, and he looked down—
—And froze.
His hands were small. Too small.
Far too small.
Damian lifted his too-small hands and grasped at his face, feeling the baby fat that hung to his cheeks. Baby fat that, last he had checked, had long-melted away from his face as he aged into his prime. Baby fat that shouldn't be there.
He threw the covers off his bed (a bed? — why hadn't he noticed he was laying in a bed?) and ran to the nearby mirror he saw standing in a corner of the room. A mirror next to a balcony he only vaguely recognized, in a room that had trappings that were far too familiar for comfort. The moment his reflection came into view, it took everything he had not to scream.
He was a child. He couldn't be any older than seven years old.
It didn't take him long to connect the dots. Damian al Ghul-Wayne had been in line to become Batman, to be the World's Greatest Detective. He took one look around the room, and knew.
He was in the past.
He was in the lair of the Demon's Head.
And if Ra's al Ghul realized who he was — what he was…
He was dead. He was so, so dead.
After about a half-hour of freaking out, an attendant arrived to deliver him breakfast. Damian did a haphazard check for poison and other little nasty surprises, mind in a complete daze. It's only as he's splattering some hummus onto his bread that the haze began to clear, and he began to really think about his situation. Slowly, he inhaled a deep breath, and counted down everything he knew.
1. He was in the past.
2. He was (probably) in one of the many estates owned by Ra's al Ghul.
3. His father's family had no idea he existed.
4. If his grandfather figured out what he was, he was as good as dead.
With all that laid out, both the rational and emotional portions of his brain agreed on one thing: Damian needed to leave now.
But the logical part of his brain, the one that was really thinking things through, recognized that he couldn't. At least not immediately. He was stuck in the body of a child, heavily monitored by his grandfather's forces, and had literally nothing to his own name. Everything he now had was by the grace of his maternal family, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, he did not exist. Even if he did, his grandfather's reach was near-limitless. There were very few places he would dare not venture if Damian escaped his grasp, and of them, only Gotham would be where Damian would feel safest in — and there was no doubt that the moment Ra's realized he had escaped, he would do just about anything to prevent him from reaching Gotham.
Escape was not happening now. Maybe not ever. No, if Damian wanted to leave, he needed help. He needed to be rescued, taken from this place by someone with far more resources than he currently had.
A message. I need to send a message to Father. Or one of the others — Richard? Or perhaps Barbara. Tim, maybe…
Jason — he didn't know where Jason was right now. Either wandering Gotham as a half-dead zombie or in another one of his mother's estates. Talia was always careful to keep them apart, too afraid that something in Damian might trigger something in Jason, make him harder to control. Depending on how long rescue took, Damian might be able to hack into the systems and figure out his location and give it to father. And Cassandra was the same. The League might have rumors about the location of the One Who is All in their systems but no more than that. There was no way they would ever allow a prize like her on the loose unless they had no choice.
Just the thought of two members of his family — the last two he really had towards the end, besides Pennyworth, the ones who held him in their arms as he died — out there like that in the wind left a deeply unpleasant feeling in his gut. Every instinct in him was screaming at him to forget the consequences and find them now, because if he didn't, then he was leaving them to suffer on their own. Jason's time between his death and his reunion with the rest of the Family had not been kind from what the man himself had told him, and Cassandra… Well. Her story spoke for itself.
He crushed every one of those instincts with cold, hard logic. If he risked it, tried to leave recklessly, half-cocked, it wouldn't end well for any of them. Once Ra's got his hands on him, Damian would be lucky to be dead. So he needed to play this smart; play along with Ra's' games, do all the training, all the learning, dare not even give a hint of his real thoughts, of how much he took after Father now. Wait for an opening, send a message, and hope to every god out there that it reached the appropriate party and that a rescue was in the works.
(God, Damian hoped he didn't have to kill anyone any time soon.)
Damian goes through training on automatic, nothing less than perfection. Because anything less always drew less-than-savory attention, and right now, attention was the last thing he needed. But while he's perfect, that doesn't mean he's not watching, not categorizing everything that's going on around him. The people, the routines, the location. He was mistaken — he's not in one of grandfather's compounds, but at one of his mother's personal estates, a remote mansion located in the Netherlands, near the mountains. No less secure, but far less oppressing. Mother's standards were high, but never as impossible or constricting as grandfather's. That's probably why there was only one attempted poisoning at breakfast instead of an outright attack to wake him up.
Mother was not present at first, and Damian couldn't help but feel grateful for that. A few days removed from his traumatic second death, and he still didn't know how to feel about her. Talia loved him, yes, but that didn't preclude him from her abuse, because he knew enough now to acknowledge and recognize that was what it was. It was hard to deny after she had gotten him killed, after all. Not to mention, she had known all along about what Ra's had always intended for him, really intended for him. That was something that was hard to forgive, seeing as the end result involved holding Richard hostage and Jason temporarily dying again.
This Talia, she hadn't done anything like that yet. But she still had the potential, and that was hard to forget. Damian wasn't sure he could ever trust her again. Or would, for that matter.
So. It was good she wasn't here.
Until she was.
When he saw his mother for the first time in years and managed to move past the instinctual need to freeze in her presence, Damian immediately noticed that something was wrong. Talia looked as if she'd seen a ghost; she acted as composed and collected as ever, but for someone who knew her, really knew her, they could recognize how preoccupied she really was. Something happened while she was gone to spook her, and Damian knew that anything that spooked Talia al Ghul had to be something indeed — and rarely good.
Damian tried not to let his concern show, tried to pretend to be the same child Talia knew him to be now. The demon spawn that his siblings had been so irritated by when he first arrived to the Manor, and Damian had dealt with enough bratty children over the years to emulate the behavior easily. It was better that way, because he couldn't trust Talia anymore than he trusted Ra's, and he couldn't let her see that anything was wrong. He didn't know what she would do, if she knew the truth.
About one week after her return, Talia picked him up after a training session, and took him to her private office. It's the most secure room in the building; nobody was allowed inside without her say-so, not even him. This room was where his mother conducted almost all her work, including meetings for missions. The amount of information stored here could break the League, or at least severely cripple it.
(It took everything Damian had not to grab the nearest candle and torch all of it. Crippling the League of Assassins would never not be a good thing.)
The moment the door closed, Talia gestured for him to sit in the seat in front of her desk. Damian quickly complied, while Talia moved to her own seat. Once they were both properly chaired, she began to speak.
"Damian, I trust you've been well?"
"Yes, mother," Damian responded dutifully. "I feel my training has been progressing smoothly. I have no complaints."
Talia nodded, eyes a little lost. "That's good to hear, my son." She paused for a moment, before speaking again. "…something has come up. You will not be able to stay here for much longer."
Damian resisted the urge to narrow his eyes. 'You', not 'we' — that was a very specific choice of words. "Whatever do you mean, mother?" he asked instead, trying to keep the innocent confusion in his voice.
"I feel it's almost time for you to meet your father."
His breath almost hitched upon hearing those words. What? What could've brought upon this change? Judging by his physical age, Mother was not supposed to send him to Father for another two to three years. Not that he was unhappy with this change, but why…? "Really, mother?" He tried to inject some wonder and longing this time, and it wasn't hard to fake because he really did want to see Father and the others.
"Yes. First, though, we need to meet with one of your brothers."
This time, Damian's breath did hitch. "My… brother?" Unless he had another biological sibling running around, there was only one brother Talia had access to right now. Why would she send Jason and him to Father now?
Talia swallowed, a rare show of weakness on her part. "Your brother. One of the strays your father adopted. He died some time ago, only to be inexplicably revived a few months afterward. I found him wandering your father's city unattended, and brought him here to be healed by the Lazarus Pit. I wish to send you to him so that he may prepare you for your first meeting with your father."
"I see." He really didn't. Why would she want to send him to Jason? The Jason of this time was supposed to hate Father for not avenging him by killing the Joker. He was more likely to turn him against Father than to prepare him to meet the man, and that wasn't what Talia wanted right now. She wanted him to claim Father's legacy, his birthright. So what changed…?
A sneaking suspicion entered Damian's mind, one that was touched with disbelief and hope. Could it be possible…? He wouldn't know until he met Jason himself. But if it was true…
If it was true, then everything just became so much easier. He might actually be able to head home soon.
"When can I meet him, mother?" Damian asked, trying not to sound too eager.
Talia smiled at him sadly. "When you feel you are ready, my love."
(Now. He was ready now.)
Damian was shipped to the Chamber of All within three days. It was just a matter of getting the necessary materials that Jason requested for them in order to make the eventual trip to Gotham. Because apparently, Jason had asked for another to join them on the trip as well. A girl named Cassandra, and just the sound of that name caused Damian's heart to thump hard and loud. It couldn't be a coincidence. It couldn't. If it was, Damian would tear his hair out from the roots. The hope, the anticipation, the fear, they swirled within him into a complicated knot of emotions that he dare not untangle in front of his mother and her men. Then they'd know, and that's the last thing he needed right now, when freedom was so close in reach.
When the plane touched down, he was almost bursting with excitement in a way that was hard to hide. Either his mother didn't notice or didn't care, because she guided him out of the plane soon enough, with one of her men carrying two briefcases in hand. The items Jason requested, whatever they were. Damian had known better than to pry, and Jason was likely going to share them with him anyway once Talia was gone. Regardless of whether or not… well, whether or not he was who Damian thought he was.
They hiked up the mountain and through the jungle, before finally reaching the Chamber. Talia left most of her men outside, only taking two with Damian and her, including the one carrying the briefcases. Damian couldn't help but let his eyes wander around the temple as they walk down its halls; this was, after all, one of the many places his older brother trained at while he was pretending to still be dead. The place where he had gotten those fancy All-Blades that he always seemed to hate using because it usually involved dealing with something magical. Jason, much like the rest of the Family, hated magic.
At the end of the hall is the All-Mother, Ducra. Talia had already taught him the proper greeting, and they bow their heads in respect to her. She accepted the gesture, before guiding them the rest of the way, to the main temple itself. They eventually make it to the Entrance Hall.
And there, standing right in the middle of it all, was Jason.
He's younger than ever before, but it was undoubtedly him. Damian's instincts were screaming at him again to go to him, to the one person here that he trusted completely and utterly in his previous life, and he had to use that cold, hard logic once more to crush the feeling. He could not afford to let Talia know. He couldn't afford to let anyone here know except for possibly Jason, and that was only if…
Talia guided him forward so they could look at each other properly for the first time. And as Jason smiled down at him, their eyes met, and Damian knew.
He was in a younger body, in a time long past. But that was his big brother looking at him, smiling at him, and nothing else in the world mattered except that. Here and now, Damian was home.
It was easy, pretending to be an unknowing, thoughtless child with Talia present. He accepted her affection with all the grace she expected, and when she was finally gone from them, allowed Jason to lead him into the Chamber and to their shared room. His brother was talking about something, about how they'll do a tour of the Chamber soon and that there's some things they'll need to do before they leave, including wait for Cassandra, but Damian was not really hearing anything of that. Or seeing anything at all, except for his brother. Only the bit about Cassandra registered, because that was his sister, and really, the only thing Damian cared about right now was his family. Because that's all that really mattered in the end, didn't it?
"…Damian? Are you listening to me?"
Damian blinked and looked up at Jason. The older boy (man?) was kneeling down in front of him so they could be as eye-level as possible. He was looking at Damian with genuine concern. "Are you okay, Damian? Am I overwhelming you?"
He wanted to laugh. "I guess you could say that," Damian said before he could stop himself.
Jason frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
The youngest of Bruce Wayne's sons gave a small, heartfelt smile. "Tau Protocol, Section 3, Subsection 2B, Code Sigma-Sigma-Beta-Tau-Delta," he said.
Damian watched as his older brother froze at those words. Jason stared down at him, mouth slightly open and ajar. He stared and stared and stared, so much so that Damian was beginning to wonder if this was a mistake. But then…
"Tau Protocol," the words left Jason's lips abruptly, stiltedly. "Section 3, Code Sigma-Sigma-India-Alpha-Omega-Tau-Delta. Acknowledge?"
"Acknowledged."
Jason lifted a hand to his mouth, and Damian saw tears begin to gather in his eyes. "…Damian?" There was a tilt to his voice, a tone that beget a different question to the one before.
One that Damian was more than happy to answer with a single, sure nod.
Not even a moment later, he found himself scooped up into Jason's arms and into the most bone-crushing hug he had ever been given in his entire life. Jason was clutching him as if his life depended on it, running a hand through his short hair with so much affection. He kept on muttering Damian's name over and over again, almost as if he thought if he stopped, Damian would disappear on him. Damian felt his own tears began to fall, and returned the embrace with everything he had.
"I am here, Jason," he whispered. "I am here."
"How did you die?"
Jason gave him a soft, tired smile. "Fifty. Lung cancer."
Damian nodded and reached over to the bowl of fruit between them, picking up a single, juicy apple. "Was it a good life?"
"…yeah. Yeah, it was."
Once they had managed to calm down from their reunion, Jason requested to Ducra that they'd be allowed to take their meals today in their room instead of with the rest of the All-Caste in the Dining Hall. They both knew that they were in no condition to be around other people right now. The only people they wanted to see, to speak with, were each other. There was no need for any eavesdroppers or interlopers.
"Do you know why we are here?" Instead of dead, is what went unsaid. Jason always had a peculiar relationship with Death, far more peculiar than even the members of the House of al Ghul had. If anyone had any idea what was going on, it was him.
But Jason simply shook his head. "I don't," he confessed. "When I died, Death came to collect me, but before She could guide me fully to the afterlife, She suddenly stopped and told me that it wasn't my time yet. She told me it was a gift, and then kissed me, and before I knew it, I was waking up in that damn Pit again."
It was a completely ridiculous story, and had it been coming from the mouth of anyone but Jason, Damian would be skeptical about it. But because it was Jason, he had no reason to disbelieve it. As he had noted before, Jason had a very strange relationship with the harbinger of the afterlife. "It is something we will have to figure out when we get home. Maybe the others can help."
"Yeah."
"…they are alive, Jason."
"Yeah," and there's wistfulness and longing in Jason's voice. "They are."
Damian didn't protest when Jason gently pulled him in, holding him tight to his side. Ever since he realized Damian was, well, Damian, his brother couldn't seem to stop touching him. A small caress here, a hair ruffle there, it would be annoying if Damian wasn't doing the same thing to him. Jason's face, tear-stained and pleading, had been the last thing he saw before the darkness came. He was the only comfort close right now, and Damian had grown enough to accept whatever comfort he could find in an unfamiliar place like this.
"How did you convince Talia to bring me to you?"
A deep inhale. Damian recognized that inhale. It's the one members of the Family made when they were about to say something the others wouldn't like. "I told her the truth about who I am," his older brother confessed.
The younger brother turned his head sharply. "We cannot trust her," Damian stated firmly.
Jason nodded. "Not entirely."
"Not at all, Jason. You know what she did to me."
Another sigh. "I do, Damian. Trust me, I do. It took me years to give her even a modicum of my trust again, especially after your death. But I needed to get you away from Ra's as soon as possible, and that was the only way."
"Jason—"
"No." Jason wasn't budging, adopting that stubborn line to his shoulders that showed, more than anything else, that he was indeed Father's son. "I'm not going to be sorry about this. I needed to get you away from him Damian. He intends to make you his meat suit, and we both know that he's the one who really killed you in the end. Mara might have been the one to pull the trigger, but he's the one who gave her the gun and the idea to do it the first place. He's every bit as responsible as she is."
He gave Damian's face another fond stroke. "I lost you twice before, little brother, and the second time nearly destroyed me. I am not losing you again, especially not to him." Jason spat out the last word with so much venom, as much as he would when speaking of the Joker. Damian's brother certainly had no love lost for Ra's al Ghul.
(Not that could Damian could blame him. Ra's had caused enough pain for them all over the years.)
"And what if it backfires on us? What if she betrays us?" The fear, the resentment, slipped out. A part of him, Damian knew, will never forgive Talia for all she had done to him. No matter her guilt, no matter her claims of love. If there had been anything Damian learned in his first life, it was that there were just some things in this world that could never be forgiven, no matter how much you wished they could be. Mara had been proof enough of that.
Jason frowned, and cuddled Damian closer. "Then we'll deal with it as we come. We're together again, Damian. And we'll be with the others soon. That's all that matters right now. Everything else can wait."
He sounded so sure. Damian was not sure he felt the same, but he could not deny he felt more comfortable now that he was once again by his brother's side. Stronger, even in this too-small body.
Because Jason was right about one thing: they were going to be with their family soon. And when their family was together, there was no force in the world that was stronger. If there was anything Damian was sure of, it was that.
It's another five days before Talia's people delivered Cassandra. She's unconscious, sedated, and the men that carry her body in look completely and utterly terrified of her. Damian supposed she did a number on them, and just as well. Even before she was Batgirl, Cassandra Cain had been a terror on the battlefield. The daughter of Lady Shiva, the soon-to-be adopted daughter of the first Batman, would never be anything less.
Jason and him take turns watching over her and continuing their training. His older brother was trying to correct his balance and reach, trying to get used to having a shorter, smaller body — one that lacked the muscle memory his old one had. Damian had it even worse, being stuck in the body of a seven year old. He was functionally useless for fighting anyone and anything that wasn't an incompetent hench(wo)man. The very thought of it was demeaning, and it was only knowing that Jason was in the same boat that kept him from complaining about it too much.
In fact, he's in the midst of complaining about it to Jason and Ducra during lunch when Cassandra finally woke up from her forcefully-induced nap. They would find out about this development thanks to the shouts and screams of several members of the All-Caste learning the same, painful lesson that his mother's men had learned while trying to subdue the One Who is All. Namely, that the One Who is All did not like people who tried to subdue her.
They rushed out of the Dining Hall to witness the carnage. Cassandra was taking no prisoners, snarling as she broke bones and twisted limbs. "Who are you?" she shouted hoarsely. "Why have you taken me? Are you with the League?"
Wait. Shouted?
Damian exchanged a wide-eyed look with Jason. Cassandra was supposed to be completely incapable of speaking at this point in the timeline. Could it be possible…?
"Stay back," Jason ordered him. "If she doesn't recognize us, then I'll be able to handle a hit better than you."
He doubted that Cassandra would harm a small child even if she didn't remember, but complied nonetheless. Jason, Damian had come to learn, had become very overprotective in the years after his death, and it's not like Damian would be any help in subduing Cassandra if necessary. As he was now, she'd just toss him away like a cheap toy.
Jason approached Cassandra carefully, warily. "Cass?" he called out, trying not to sound threatening.
Cassandra froze upon hearing his voice. She dropped the assassin she had been rag-dolling and whirled around to face their brother. "Jason?" she responded back, tinged with wonder.
Brother and sister stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Jason straightened his shoulders, expression firm. "Tau Protocol, Section 3, Code Sigma-Sigma-India-Alpha-Omega-Tau-Delta."
Their sister gasped at those words, her eyes taking on a shiny sheen. "Tau Protocol, Section 3, Subsection 2B, Corollary A, Code Sigma-Omega-Alpha-India-Delta-Tau."
Jason's face lit up as he heard those words, his face stretching into a magnificent grin. "Cass," he breathed out.
A sob escaped Cassandra's mouth. Damian watched as his two older siblings practically threw themselves each other, embracing with so much love and affection that one could see it emanating from them. He found himself smiling at the sight. Jason hadn't spoken much about the future, probably wanting to wait on that until they were with the rest of the Family so they could all speak about it at once, but he did mention that Cassandra had managed to outlive him. While it saddened him to learn that their sister had been left alone after Jason's death, at least it was at a relatively late age, where she had enough time to make peace with what was to come. Damian hadn't left either of his siblings to be alone after all.
"You're here, you're here, you're here…" Cassandra chanted like a prayer into the crook of Jason's neck.
Jason smiled into his sister's hair, unable to hold back his own tears. "I'm not the only one."
Cassandra blinked at that, briefly pulling away to gaze upon her brother. Jason continued smiling, before gently looking back towards Damian. Cassandra followed his line of sight, and let out another gasping sob.
Damian's smile widened into a grin of his own, and he stretched his arms outward. Seconds later, he was scooped up into his second bone-crushing hug of the week. "Damian," she whispered, "Oh, Damian."
"It is good to see you too, Cassandra," Damian murmured back. "It is good to see you too."
"Seventy-five. Stroke. Last of the First Generation."
Jason shook his head. "Figures you'd outlive us all, Cass," he declared.
Cassandra gave him a playful nudge, though her expression was bittersweet. A long, fruitful life was certainly something to celebrate, but she had indeed outlived them all, and that came with its own share of pain. Pain that Damian certainly did not envy in the least. He saw so much of it in Jason already, he could only imagine how Cassandra handled even more of it. She had always been more put together than all of them, more grounded, but pain was still pain in the end.
"What do we do now?" Damian asked, drawing both of their attention to him. "We are all together now. And we all want to go home."
Instead of saying something, Cassandra turned to Jason, who sighed. "The original plan was for the three of us to stay here for a few months before heading to Gotham. There's a day where the Chamber of All opens directly into the city of Istanbul; I was going to use the time between now and then to get you guys up to par with our cover, then we'd leave and hope we blended in with the public long enough to get back to the States before Ra's tried to nab us," he explained. "Obviously, the whole 'getting you guys up to par' bit is no longer necessary. But there's still the issue of the date — if we leave now, we're going to have to hike down the mountain to the remote Japanese countryside. We'll have to grab a ride to Tokyo and fly from there to Bludhaven. Then we can meet up with Dick there and he can escort us to Gotham."
Damian bit his lip. "I do not mind if we have to hike or anything like that," he admitted. "And it might actually be better to leave sooner. It is unlikely that Grandfather has noticed I am gone yet, and the longer we wait, the more likely it is he will notice. What I want to know is why go to Bludhaven instead of Gotham? I want to see Richard too, but Grandfather is far more likely to trespass his territory than he is Father's. Would it not be safer for us to go to Gotham first?"
Jason frowned, a thoughtful look on his face. "Normally, I'd agree with you little brother," he finally said, "and you're right — Gotham is a safer destination than Bludhaven. But just because it's unlikely Ra's has noticed your disappearance does not mean he actually hasn't. And if he has, he's going to keep a vigilant eye on any and all flights to Gotham. He's less likely to do that with Bludhaven, because we all know he never really gave a shit about Dick."
That, (un)fortunately, was true, Damian had to concede. Grandfather held immense respect for Father and Tim, was obsessed with claiming Damian and Cassandra, and absolutely hated Jason, but never had much regard for Richard. Respected him to an extent, as the Bat's first little bird, but not much more than that. The most use Ra's al Ghul had ever found for Dick Grayson had been to use him as bait for Damian, and that was as far as their relationship ever went.
"That makes sense," Damian acknowledged slowly. "And Richard is every bit as capable as Father. We will be safe with him."
"Yeah, we will be," Jason agreed, adopting that wistful tone again.
A soft hum was suddenly heard, and both boys(?) turned to the last of their trio. Cassandra was looking at the ground speculatively, as if she was trying to figure out some kind of invisible puzzle there. "Cass?" asked Jason carefully.
"Is there something wrong, Cassandra?" added Damian.
She glanced up at them both, lips pressed into a line. "We are all here, after our deaths, right?"
"Yes…?"
"Well, if we are here, do you think it's possible that everyone else is here too?"
And just like that, Damian's entire world stopped.
"Oh," he said. "Oh."
Hi! Been a while, huh? Well, if you've been keeping up with my stories, you know had a really bad experience recently with wrestling (please do not comment on it, I'm doing my best to wipe it from memory), and so I needed something to wash the bad taste away. So I started reading some nice, wholesome Bat-Family fics, including a few new ones involving a Peggy Sue Dick Grayson (I think I started a trend) and thought to myself — hey, wouldn't it be cool if we sent everyone back instead of just Jason in ODAT?
And so, here we are. For the record, it isn't everyone everyone going back (at least not yet - I'm kind doing this one by the seat of my pants right now). I've decided not to include Kate, Duke, and Luke yet because it's been a while since I've really sunk my teeth into their characters and I want to do them right. I'll probably bring them in later, though when I'll keep close to my vest. But as for others — well, you'll have to wait until next chapter to see the full list.
The backstory information revealed in this story is going to be canon to the main 'verse. However, this is officially a spin-off. If you want to understand a lot of what's been going on in this story, I heavily suggest reading ODAT first before starting this one. Maybe some of TSG would be good as well.
The title of the story and the chapter names are based off "Good Old Days" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (feat. Kesha). I'll probably end the story when I run out of distinctive song lyrics.
Now, for the next chapter: Midnight in Gotham, starring Bruce Wayne.
